Help:Comparison of Skins
This page serves to help you choose your default skin. Wikia allows two different skins to be enabled in . They are listed below: * Monobook * Oasis ("Wikia") You can to some extent easily compare the two skins by looking at the following two links: * This page in MonoBook * This page in Oasis MonoBook MonoBook was once the default skin for MediaWiki. Remember the time when Wiki Pedia looked robotic, cramped and squarish everywhere? Yup, that was MonoBook. Luckily, we have copied (and very slightly modified) the English Uncyclopedia's MediaWiki:Uncyclopedia.css which customises it to look like MediaWiki's new default skin (which is used by Wiki Pedia, too), Vector, which we call Pseudo-Vector. Advantages of MonoBook *We have installed WikEd. Now, this is a really, really, big advantage. It allows syntax highlighting, various autofixes, improves editing speed, and I could go on and on. Note that this is technically supposed to work on Oasis, but experimentation has shown that for large articles or articles with a lot of formatting and math, it breaks, and makes the entire text unreadable, uneditable, and replaced with a large grey block, so it has been disabled on Oasis. *No ads! No seriously, there are absolutely no ads 'in ''MonoBook. It is technically possible for any administrator to very easily disable ads on Oasis using CSS using but it violates Wikia's Terms of Use. Ads are removed by default on MonoBook. *No rails! Well, you can turn off rails by a click on Oasis too, if you use the Recommended Snippet of JavaScript, but MonoBook has totally no rails! *Looks like Wiki Pedia. If you are used to editing Wiki Pedia, you have nothing to adjust too. The "Pseudo-Vector" Sin, a CSS-based customisation of the "MonoBook" skin (since Wikia uses an older version of MediaWiki, there's no real Vector Skin on Wikia) looks almost identical to MediaWiki's new default skin, which is also Wiki Pedia's default skin, '''Vector. Such a customisation is almost impossible for the Oasis skin, and would even break Wikia's Terms of Use. *Optimised for editing, since Editing Tools appear right below. *All templates on page are listed below the editing area, linked to their respective template pages. *Minimal, so JavaScript usually loads properly, even though Visual Editor has been enabled. *For the same reason as mentioned above, loads quickly, and therefore very suitable for people using Dial-Up or away from a city, or on some slow internet connection. *One may Edit any page's introduction just as one may edit any section. Disadvantages of MonoBook *Certain pages, like ' ', ' ' (now made to work in Pseudo-Vector through a simple hack at MediaWiki:Myhome-switch-to-monaco) , and ' ' (an admin-only feature, really), are not available. However, the page that you land on has a direct link to the Oasis version of the page, so not a big deal. *Not de facto supported by Wikia much (well, it is de jure, but not really, the File:Wiki.png bug took quite a few months to solve, if I am not wrong, so bugs may take a while to get solved. But y ou can help by visiting !) *No fluid layout, but that's ok, since there are no rails, etc. However, on mobile devices, this maybe a little irritating, just a little. But that doesn't matter; since by default you use the Mobile skin on mobile devices. See this page in Wikia's Mobile Skin. A recent update to this skin has even enabled an editing - optimised Mobile version for Wikia. *No User Identity Box Oasis (Wikia) Oasis (Wikia) is a skin developed by Wikia. It is the default skin for almost all Wikias, including this one. Most Wikia-developed extensions, like , etc., are only available in Oasis. Advantages of Oasis *Many features, like , (admin-only) etc., are only available on Oasis. However, the MonoBook skin versions of them all (which are basically just some pages with text in them saying that the page can only be viewed in Oasis, c.f. this) have links to the Oasis versions of them. If you find a page that does not, inform us on the Meta Board. *De Facto supported by Wikia, since it supports ads, and therefore earns money for Wikia. So bugs get resolved quickly. *Fluid Layout! But this is not so important on Pseudo-Vector, anyway, since there are no rails, ads, etc. *User Identity Box Disadvantages of Oasis *Lots of ads! * A wikia rail, causing the page size to become smaller. Luckily, if you have the Recommended Snippet of JavaScript, you can easily hide the rails, yet retain the search bar through a single button, and show them again, using the same. *Looks very different from Wiki Pedia. *No WikiEd. *Not at all minimal, and a relatively more complicated, and large, heavy, code, so it loads slowly. If on Dial Up or away from a city, or somehow with poor internet connection, MonoBook is always the best. *For the reason mentioned above, Java Script doesn't always load properly. Neither does CSS. *Not optimised for editing; takes a click to load Editing Tools. *Templates on page, hidden categories, etc., are obscured by unnecessary features, such as a WikiaBar (on Pseudo-Vector, all it's nice features go to the edit menu). Non-minimalistic, yet not very efficient, editing. *Once can't edit the introduction of any page using a single button like one may do so on sections.